


Paradoxes (or: 1066 Wasn't All That)

by InTheWildness



Series: Norman Conquest [1]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: 11th Century, 12th Century, Angst, Complicated Relationships, England and Normandy Were Technically Married, Historical Hetalia, Implicit and Brief Non-Con/Rape, Much more hate than love, Norman Conquest, Not Canon Compliant, Other, Prideful England
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-25
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 01:35:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,058
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25515121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InTheWildness/pseuds/InTheWildness
Summary: Normandy trampled on his spine, claimed his body and reshaped it, yet expected his brain to govern it for him. As the foreign blood forced its entrance into England's body, what came along was a steel-like power, which both threatened to smother his core and promised to secure his stand in this ruthless world.England hated Normandy, but as their fates were linked and their blood and flesh merged, it was more convenient to direct his hatred at France who always looked down his nose at the island nation. In the end, the invaders from Normandy or Anjou or Aquitaine were part of him---they were born from the heart and soul of France."You've taken too much from me and given too much to me. And both were reasons why you owe me the fertility, vastness, and vitality of the Continent."
Relationships: England/France (Hetalia), France/England, Normandy/England (Hetalia), Not necessarily romantic - Relationship
Series: Norman Conquest [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1848529
Comments: 2
Kudos: 10





	Paradoxes (or: 1066 Wasn't All That)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is in second-person. "You" refers to England.

("You" is England.)

At first glance, it looked like the monstrous, dishonorable Normans had gained an absolute upper hand in the “union”---vassalization---or, to the best of both sides's pleasure, the uneasy coexistence you were trapped into. These foreign people stepped on the spine of your people, claiming and reshaping your upper body. However, they later realized they had no roots here to penetrate the soil they’ve taken as spoils, that they did not understand at all how things worked on the lands they’ve stolen and now called home. The nobilities brought here by Normandy---the thieves, the crows who thrived off the fertility drained with blood and tears of small landowners---had to turn to you and relied on your brain on how to manage the daily function of locality. They had to keep your laws, your administration, your monasteries, so they could keep the poor English tenants under check with a disguise of continuity and normalcy. They left those troublesome jobs, essential yet trivial at the same time, to your abbots, your sheriffs, to those who thought like you, talked like you, and loved you and only you. 

It was harder to remain prideful before the personification of Normandy, though, after the Harrying of the North upon the memory of which you felt like throwing up. He compactly assembled your scattered but interconnected parts, holding a firm grip on everything that kept your heart beating. You didn’t like it, and were conspicuously filled with fear, as every inch of your bones and flesh became transparent before your conqueror. You hated such intrusive vulnerability even more than the equally brutal, unwanted intimacy 20 years ago after the nightmare of Hastings, when Normandy forced a steel-like power into you along with his French and Viking blood, relentlessly letting you bleed Anglo-Saxons’ blood onto the throne under you, all while Bastard William smugly claimed it. 

Holding the Doomsday Book, Normandy breathed on your neck and whispered, “with more centralization we’ll be stronger,” while you lay under him with your eyes closed, passionless, his half-mocking, half-seductive breath no longer having the effect to send a shiver down your half-dea---numb nerves. Just like before, he opened his arms and prayed for wealth and power, while you silently sang a dirge for liberty.

You let the conqueror exploit your economic lifeline to support his ambitions of expansion. You watched as he stomped on Ireland’s abdomen and nearly strangled Scotland. You had little cause to love them. Knowing that they probably felt the same way towards you after all these bloodsheds in between them, you felt less guilty.

You were brothers, but had become less and less so every time a person newly arrived from the other side of the Channel and became one of yours, sometimes in the form of an invader who called himself a savior.

You were brothers, but that hardly counted when it was not the dear mother you shared, but the various peoples coming and going across borders, who made and constantly remade the shape and edge of your souls.

You were brothers, but that hardly mattered after the elites of yours eventually bowed to Claudius, Christianity, and Latin in awe.

You were brothers, but how could you have any faith in flimsy familial bonds after Scotland built Hadrian’s Wall to shut you out because he didn’t want any more part of Rome or you---Province of Britannia--to contaminate the legacy of the real Britannia? How could you expect anything after you learnt that things like that had to happen even if none of you were to blame?

You fought your brothers, just like Normandy fought his---Burgundy, Anjou, and even his superior-in-name, that cocky France. But you and Normandy, you were with each other. Yes, in private, you were just strange bedfellows dreaming different dreams---for many years, these dreams couldn’t be any more different. Yet from the moment he shared your crown, your fate was tied to his and his to yours, your interests intertwined with his and his with yours. In the eyes of the belligerent and stubborn neighbors you shared, you were one and the same. As Normandy took more and more and grew bigger, the Normans became you, to some extent, and thus secured your spine and strengthened your muscle with their feudalism and talent in military and military training. 

You never wanted to be his, but he was the biggest reason you didn’t later become Norway’s. At least Normandy preserved the last piece of your pride by having to allow you to lie that you owned him, instead of the other way around, because he was just a duchy. At least you were worth more to him than to Norway as Normandy had much less land and had more cliffs than lands in his own place. You should be relieved. Or should you not?

Wasn’t it a greater shame to be taken over by such an irrelevant duchy than by another nation known for ferocity and strength? Then you remembered Normans were descendants of Vikings; Normandy shared more blood with your fierce Scandinavian cousins than you did. 

The French---Vikings---Normans who later became Anglo-Normans...No matter they were more French or more Scandinavian, they still only accounted for a tiny portion of your complicated bloodline, far from enough to occupy a place in your heart. So the stabler your body grew, the more you felt the burden of shackles of heavy taxation and inescapable serfdom on the oppressed majority, and the closer you heard their desperate cries. When they were excluded from the governance of their own land and openly called the inferior civilization, they interrogated you in the language your tongue was already alienated from, “(modern English translation) Where are you, England? Are you still our England?” You knew they were not only interrogating you for their sake but also for yours: how many more old blood of yours can afford to be replaced with new blood, how many more pieces can be removed from you, before you were dead? Would you, as a nation, be dead after the land once called England was reconstructed to a certain extent? 

*English is not my first language, so if there is any grammatical mistake or awkward wording that interferes with reading, please forgive me and nicely point it out!


End file.
